Guilty By Association
by Fool Who Follows
Summary: Apparently, it's against the law to chin the Chief Superintendent. After the Fall, suspicion falls on those closest to the disgraced Detective…
1. Part I: Pointing the Finger

Disclaimer: Do not own Sherlock, make no money from him.

Apparently, it's against the law to chin the Chief Superintendent. After the Fall, suspicion falls on those closest to the disgraced Detective…

A/N: I know everyone's writing post-TRF fic at the moment, but I couldn't help myself. This is mine. Spoilers abound.

The Chief Superintendent isn't named in cannon so I called him after a village in the North with a name I liked.

SHSHSHSHSH

Guilty By Association: Part I – Pointing the Finger

The uniformed police officers gathered on the street around the panda cars followed the ancient instinct of coppers and Labradors and gave chase after the fleeing forms of Sherlock Holmes and John Watson. Most were still shaking their heads after the disabling screech of feedback that had almost deafened them, allowing their quarry to break away. One was also rather shamefacedly unarmed; a fact that would undoubtedly cause some difficult questions later. Only the three plain-clothes officers and those already inside the house remained behind.

"What are you doing, Lestrade?" Chief Superintendent Tom Ackenthwaite managed to shout around the hanky he was holding to his bloody nose. "Get after 'em!"

"There's no point, Sir," the DI told him wretchedly. "Sherlock knows every street, back alley, footpath and rooftop shortcut in London. He's probably got a dozen unnecessarily complicated emergency escape routes from Baker Street saved up in his head; if he doesn't want to be caught, Usain Bolt couldn't run fast enough to keep up with him."

"Oh, well, that's just _perfect_, isn't it?" His superior responded savagely. "I can see tomorrow's headlines now; 'Fake Detective Escapes Arrest While Holding Coppers at Gunpoint.' I give it 24 hours before that Watson bloke turns up dead in an alley; and then we'll all be even deeper in it than we started."

"Not a _chance_," Lestrade declared with certainty. "Sherlock would never _dream _of hurting John; those two are practically joined at the hip, for God's sakes."

"Didn't stop Holmes pointing a gun at his head, did it?" Was Ackenthwaite's response.

"Well, I dunno about the hip, sir," Sally commented, "But they are definitely joined at the wrist for the night. Not even the Freak could get far on foot handcuffed to a corpse, and Watson just nutted a senior police officer in his defence; I don't see them splitting up anytime soon."

The Super's hand withdrew the bloody fabric from his nose in shock. "Are you telling me that I just got chinned by Holmes' personal _mollyboy_?" He asked, appalled. "Oh, this just keeps getting better; how am I supposed to live down getting my nose broke by some limp-wristed poofter?"

"How dare you talk like that about my boys!" An outraged voice shrieked from the doorway of 221B. Mrs Hudson, in all her righteous glory, bustled down the steps to poke a bony finger into the Superintendent's flabby chest. "I want your name and rank, young man; I'll have you done for discrimination if it's the last thing I do. How dare you march onto my property and arrest my poor Sherlock after everything he's done for the police? And then you try to lock John up too for defending him?"

"Holmes is a suspect in a serious crime, _Madam_," Ackenthwaite replied, through gritted teeth. "And Watson just committed assault in front of half a dozen police officers. I suggest you back off before I have to have you arrested too."

"You don't frighten me!" She shouted back, with another prod. "My husband was executed in Florida; I've seen things that would make your hair curl, what's left of it. Go on and arrest me; I want it on record what you said about John, you prejudiced bastard!"

"This is your last warning," The Super threatened, clearly nearing the end of his rope. "And you can't prove what I said or didn't say without witnesses. Isn't that right, Detective Inspector Lestrade?" He added meaningfully, with a sideways glance at the DI.

"Actually, sir, I think you'll find that derogatory words like 'poofter' are highly disapproved of by the Independent Police Complaints Commission," he replied wryly. "And I'm not even remotely deaf, thanks." Both looked simultaneously at Sally for the casting vote.

"I'm… going to have to go with Lestrade on this one, Sir," said Donovan reluctantly. "He is technically right; the guidelines are very clear…"

"But I'm sure if you apologise to Mrs Hudson here, there'll be no need to take it further?" The DI said hopefully, shooting the furious landlady a pleading expression.

"Oh, no; don't you look at me like that, Greg Lestrade!" She declared, visibly swelling with rage. "All the times you've turned up asking those boys to help you out of the goodness of their hearts and the minute some idiot accuses Sherlock you just arrest him, no questions asked? There'd be a hundred more murderers on the street if it wasn't for them!"

"I tried to do this without having to arrest him, you know I did; Sherlock wouldn't even talk to me. He didn't leave me any choice…"

"Choice? I'll give you a choice; if you dare turn up in my café again after this I'll have you kicked out onto the street, and you'll never see another one of my chocolate macaroons again! And if you think I'm going to lay on a Drugs Bust spread like I usually do you have another thing coming!"

"Mrs Hudson, I understand you're upset…" Sally attempted to defuse the situation.

"_Upset?_" The elderly landlady interrupted shrilly. "This isn't upset; this is bloody _furious_!"

"Right; that's enough!" Ackenthwaite barked. "Donovan, arrest the old biddy and for God's sakes, shut her up."

"On what charge, Sir?"

"Wasting police time, making an affray, public disorder, and giving the Chief Superintendent a headache are all arrestable offences in my book," he said grimly. "And that's before we start talking about accessory after the fact. Take your pick."

"Sir, _please_," Lestrade tried in desperation. "Look, Mrs Hudson, if you get arrested too, who's going to look after the flat for Sherlock and John until this whole mess is sorted out? Come on, now; I'll make you some tea, and you can make sure forensics don't damage anything upstairs, yeah?"

"They'd better not," she bristled. "I'll be sending a bill for repairs to the Yard, and see how you like it."

"I'll pay it out of my own pocket," he promised earnestly.

"Assuming you still work there by then," Ackenthwaite added menacingly. "Regardless, Mrs… Hudson, was it? Needs to be questioned; get one of the DCs to do it. Housekeepers always make handy witnesses…" Donovan and Lestrade both winced in anticipation of her outraged shout.

"I am _not_ anyone's _housekeeper_!"

By the time she'd calmed down enough to be lead away by a Detective Constable for her interview, one of the uniforms who had been pursuing her fugitive tennants had appeared, jogging back to the little group with an evidence bag in hand. "Found something, sir."

"Is that the gun he nicked?" Questioned Ackenthwaite. "Why would Holmes throw that away?"

"Because he doesn't need it," Lestrade answered miserably. "John Watson would follow that man to the ends of the Earth, cuffs or no cuffs."

"Well, if you know them so bloody well, Lestrade, you can tell me where they'll go," the Super growled, dabbing again at his nose.

Greg's brow furrowed. "Where they'll go? How would I know that?"

"Your Consultant is a _criminal_, remember? Like all other criminals on the run, he'll go to someone he trusts to hide him. Friends, family, accomplices; who?"

"Everyone Sherlock considers a friend is handcuffed to him at the moment, sir. He'll… pursue the case, like he always does."

"And if it's true that this 'case' is all Holmes' own work?"

"Then clearly, I don't know Sherlock Holmes nearly as well as I thought I did," he replied quietly.

"Yes; I think you and I need to have a little chat about exactly how _friendly_ you and Holmes are back at the Yard, don't you?" Ackenthwaite suggested meaningfully. "Donovan, take over here."

"Yes, sir," the pair chanted; Lestrade resignedly, Sally with a definite hint of 'I told you so' in her expression.

SHSHSHSHSH

"Right then, Lestrade," Chief Superintendent Ackenthwaite squawked darkly, removing a bloody cotton ball from one swollen nostril with a wince to drop it into the wastepaper basket under his desk. He leaned forwards across it, glaring through his thick-lensed spectacles and the beginnings of some really spectacular bruising. "How long has it been going on, your little arrangement with Holmes?"

The beleaguered DI raised his head from where it rested in his hands. "About… six, maybe seven years, sir," he answered honestly. Greg Lestrade had been a copper long enough to know that his career was already in tatters; he didn't have it in him to lie at this point.

"_Years_? Just how many cases are we talking about here?"

"Of mine? Maybe… forty or fifty, in total. You'd have to ask the other DI's how much they used him."

"Other DI's?"

"Gregson, Hopkins, Youghal, Marshall, Singh, Clarke, Dimmock; those are the ones I can remember off the top of my head. Probably others at other nicks; Sherlock was more than willing to travel in the name of the Work. He took private cases, as well; and I know for a fact he did the odd government job…"

"_Government?_" Ackenthwaite repeated incredulously. "Who in the Government was stupid enough to employ an amateur like Holmes?"

"He had connections, Sir…"

"I don't care what kind of connections he had; there is no excuse whatsoever for a senior DI to give a half baked private eye access to active crime scenes! How did it start? Did he conveniently turn up at the tape and shout the murderer's name and address?"

"No, Sir. I got drafted in to help on a big raid on a crack house in Hoxton; Sherlock sort of got caught up in it all, so I arrested him."

"And what was a PI doing in a crack house?"

"He… Sherlock…" Lestrade took a deep breath. "Had a… bad time, when he was younger…"

"If the next sentence out of your mouth contains the words 'drug dealer,' Lestrade…"

"Sherlock was never a dealer," he correced sharply. "He was just an addict, all right?"

"And that is so much better! Now you're telling me Holmes isn't just a criminal and a fake but a junkie too?"

"He _was_ a junkie. He's cleaned himself up; I wouldn'tve given him the time of day if he hadn't…"

"Oh really? Excuse me if I find that hard to believe."

"That night, _sir_, Sherlock Holmes was so off his face he could barely stand, let alone run away from the police. Inside five minutes, he still managed to deduce that my wife was making me sleep on the sofa that week, I'd spent the morning investigating a murder in Islington near a French bakery, and that the killer couldn't possibly have been the husband because the flour on my shoes was the wrong colour. Oh, and while he was at it, he announced that one of the two PCs who'd just been snogging in the back of a panda car was pregnant and hadn't told anyone yet because she wasn't sure if the father was Nigerian or Welsh! Tell me _you_ would have overlooked an insight like that, especially after other evidence in the Islington case proved him right!"

A knock on the door caused both of them to look up; Anderson poked his head into the Super's office, Sally close behind.

"Sorry to interrupt, sir, but I have the analysis of those footprints back; and I don't think you're going to like the results."

"I don't like anything about this disaster. Spit it out, Anderson."

"Well, they don't belong to Sherlock Holmes, for a start," the Forensics officer admitted reluctantly.

"I knew it," Lestrade stated, letting out a long, relieved breath. "I _knew_ Sherlock wouldn't hurt anyone…"

"How could you tell?" Ackenthwaite interrupted demandingly. "Is it definite?"

"I'm afraid so, sir. The computer model that analyses the footprints confirmed that the kidnapper was almost certainly male, but from the spacing between prints he couldn'tve been more than about five foot eight, maybe as little as five six."

"Holmes didn't look that short to me…"

"Because he isn't," Sally interjected. "The Freak's a lanky streak of piss, taller than the DI; must be at least six-foot."

"I wouldn't put it past him to be able to alter his stride to make himself seem shorter," Anderson continued, "So I did a bit more checking. The prints left at the school were a size nine; genius or not, I seriously doubt even Sherlock Holmes could squeeze his size twelve feet into them."

"All right; so he hired someone to grab the kids for him."

Lestrade couldn't help but interject. "Hang on, sir; the whole reason these two started to suspect Sherlock in the first place was because the girl screamed when she saw him! Why would she do that if he wasn't the one who kidnapped her?"

"He must've been there as well," Sally hypothesised grimly. "To watch; and he probably wouldn't trust anyone else to plant the evidence he needed to let him _magically_ solve the case."

"But then why would he want to talk to the girl afterwards? It'd only give her the chance to recognise him."

Anderson cut in, "And who is going to believe a traumatised poisoned seven year old over an adult," he made air quotes with his fingers, "_genius detective_?"

"Well, me, for starters," Ackenthwaite remarked. "I wouldn't trust that nutter as far as I could throw him. Did you get anything else from the footprints?"

"The lab are still working on the chemical trace, sir; could be a couple of days before we get a full report. Oh, but there is one bit of good news; it looks like one of the kids managed to plant a good kick on the bastard, he was limping slightly on one leg. Not much help now, but as soon as we turn up a suspect we should check for any signs of bruising…"

Sally's eyes went wide; a hand rose to cover her mouth in shock. "Oh, God… Keith," She almost whispered. "Why didn't you say that before?"

He stared at her in confusion. "I didn't think it was that urgent; it's not like we can go around pulling up the trousers of every short bloke in London to look for bruises…"

"But don't you remember? A Study in Pink? When Watson first turned up…"

Horrified comprehension dawned on Anderson's face as he completed her sentence. "…With a walking stick."

"_No_!" Lestrade exploded, outraged. "No way; would you two listen to yourselves? Yes, all right, Sherlock Holmes is an arsehole ninety nine percent of the time, but _John_? John Watson is a good man; you _know_ he is. He manages to live with Sherlock without strangling him, for a start…"

"And that's never seemed odd to you?" Sally asked sharply. "When the Freak keeps spare body parts in their fridge _with the food_ and a skull on his mantelpiece and jars of eyeballs in the microwave?"

"_Eyeballs_?" Clearly, Ackenthwaite hadn't spent long enough inside 221B to understand its unique charms.

"He said it was 'for an experiment'," Anderson explained, sceptically. "I've never worked out how anyone even remotely sane could stand to share a flat with the man."

"You said it yourself, Inspector," Sally continued, not without sympathy for her harried boss. "John Watson would do anything for Sherlock Holmes. He can't be more than a couple of inches taller than I am, so he's the right build, and when the girl screamed, he was standing right behind Sherlock, like he always does."

"Where no one ever notices him," Anderson added sagely, "Because he's short and bland and forgettable. Hiding in plain sight; perfect for a murderer…"

"Don't you start, Anderson!" Lestrade protested angrily. "I know for a fact that even _you_ like John, and you _loathe _Sherlock. The man is a _doctor_, for God's sakes! D'you honestly think he'd abduct a couple of primary school kids at gunpoint and force feed them poisoned sweets for _fun_?"

"Because everyone knows that doctors _never_ go bad and become serial killers," Ackenthwaite intervened, sarcasm laid on with a trowel. "We've already got evidence that Watson's more than capable of violating his Hippocratic Oath on my face."

"Well of course he's _capable_; John used to be in the army." Lestrade answered. "But he's a decent man; believe me, Sir, if he'd wanted to, he could have done a lot worse than bloody your nose."

"Knows his way around a gun, too, then?" The Superintendent commented, arching an eyebrow. "If you're right, Donovan, and Watson is our kidnapper, then this could be our chance to salvage some kind of result out of this colossal cock up."

Lestrade's jaw dropped. "You're not seriously going to arrest _John_…"

"I already have, for assault on a police officer, remember?" Sally reminded him. "Look, I know he's your friend, and I don't really want to believe it either… but we're coppers, Sir! We have to stick with the facts. We can't write off the possibility that John could be involved just because he comes across as a nice bloke."

"Well done, Sergeant," Ackenthwaite praised. "That's the first objective thing any of you have managed to say today. Those two can't hide forever; and when they turn up, we'll see how loyal _Holmes_ can be. I bet he'll try and leave his boyfriend to take the rap for him; and then we can play one off against the other until we have all the evidence we need to take down both of 'em."

"Sherlock wouldn't do that! You're making a mistake, sir," Lestrade warned. "John Watson is no more a criminal than I am."

"Oh, yeah?" Ackenthwaite responded, unimpressed. "I'll tack fifty counts of tampering with a crime scene on top of the assault, conspiracy and kidnapping charges, then, shall I?" He leaned even closer, voice soft but still managing to be menacing despite the squeak. "Don't think you're out of the shit, Lestrade; I haven't even broken out the big shovel yet."

SHSHSHSHSH

I think this is going to be a three-parter; apologies to those of you waiting on an update on 'But Who IS He?'; it's been on the back burner a bit lately.

Let me know what you thought.


	2. Part II: Paper Bags and Angry Voices

A/N: My eternal gratitude goes out to those of you who reviewed, alerted or favourited the first chapter. Sorry for the long wait; this gave me a bit more trouble than I expected.

SHSHSHSHSH

Guilty By Association: Part II – Paper Bags and Angry Voices

Detective Inspector Greg Lestrade had had a thoroughly miserable night.

After his dressing down from Ackenthwaite, he'd been banished to his office to write a report detailing every case Sherlock Holmes had ever been even peripherally involved in "pending emergency internal review". He'd been a copper too long not to know what that meant; if he was lucky, he might just get away with a demotion and never setting foot on another murder scene again.

Lestrade had never been less proud of his case closure rate; there were over a thousand files on the database to trawl through before morning. He'd been staring at his computer so long his eyes were crossing. Trying to remember which cases Sherlock had looked at, what he'd contributed and exactly why Lestrade had felt the need to call him on each and every one was making his brain want to dribble out of his ears. He was also rapidly running out of ways to creatively rephrase _"because I was desperate, all right?"_

A sensible man would have been considering cutting his losses and handing in his notice; but Lestrade had spent far too much time with Sherlock Holmes to be considered entirely sensible. Some deep-seated, childish sense of justice within him couldn't help but shout _it's not fair! I only did what I did because Sherlock's better than the whole Met put together, and using him saved lives and caught killers and I would have done it all over again if I had the chance!_

Worse than that, though, was the significant proportion of Greg's mind that just wanted Sherlock to turn up at the Yard with some indisputable evidence of his innocence, fix this mess, call them all idiots and swan off home to Baker Street with John at his heels.

It didn't matter what Donovan, Anderson, or even Ackenthwaite thought. The one and only reason Lestrade had gone with them to the Superintendent was to try and do some damage control. After all, if he hadn't, they'dve gone anyway and Greg himself would have been in even deeper trouble than he was now, not to mention on the outside of the investigation.

Lestrade had seen too many miracles performed by Sherlock Holmes to even begin to believe that all his work, every single deduction he'd ever made, could have been fake. All right; it couldn't be said that Sherlock didn't get destructive when he was bored, but his victims tended to be already dead and donated to science, not asleep in their beds in a shockingly expensive private school.

And now poor John was tangled up in the whole mess too. Greg genuinely liked and respected Sherlock's flatmate; they'd been to the pub together a few times to watch the football and grumble about a certain Consulting Detective. The doctor was almost Sherlock's polar opposite; patient, kind, instantly likeable, and not inclined to gloat or insult people even after he trounced them at darts. With the notable exception of Ackenthwaite, every copper who encountered the unlikely pair immediately warmed to the man; in fact, after meeting Sherlock, most of them considered John a candidate for sainthood.

The suggestion that John Watson would hurt _anyone_ for no reason, let alone children, would be laughable if the others didn't seem to be taking it so seriously. The man still held doors for Sally, for God's sake; he was practically a throwback to the age of chivalry. It almost made Lestrade sympathise with how Sherlock felt when he stared around a crime scene, wondering why no one else could see something that was so blindingly obvious to him.

When even Scotland Yard's terrible vending machine coffee finally stopped having an effect on the mind numbing tedium of his task at about five am, Greg allowed his gritty, itching eyes to drift shut and rested his cheek on his desk, just for ten minutes…

He didn't move again until eight thirty, prying his cheek off the pile of dog-eared and slightly drooled on notebooks he'd been using as a pillow with a groan to clean up as best he could in the Gents. After stepping down to the canteen for a caffeine injection and the least healthy breakfast money could buy, he returned to three missed calls from the Chief Superintendent and yet another telling off when he phoned back.

Donovan at least had the grace to wait for the shouting to finish before bursting into his office like a minature whirlwind.

"Have you seen it?" She demanded breathlessly. "It's all here, the proof, everything… He was a fake, Sir, the Freak's been making idiots of all of us for years."

"Seen what?"

In response, she slapped a copy of _The Sun_ triumphantly onto his desk.

_**BOFFIN IS A FAKE!**_

The headline screamed above a full-page picture of Sherlock in that bloody stupid hat. The tagline below read "_Childhood friend Rich Brook tells all._"

"What the hell…" His eye snagged on the small insert picture in a corner. "Isn't that Moriarty?"

"No, Sir, it isn't. His real name is Richard Brook, an out of work actor Sherlock Holmes _hired_ to pretend to be a criminal genius called Moriarty, so he could show us all how 'clever' he is."

"You _can't_ be serious…" Lestrade managed incredulously.

"Oh, I'm deadly serious. It's all in here, Sir; how the Freak couldn't take not being smarter than his brother, how he started dealing drugs when he was in university, how he used the proceeds to make himself look like a genius. He hired actors, blackmailed people into confessions, contracted hit men to create the crimes just so he could amaze the world when he 'solved' them."

"No… this is… it doesn't make any sense…"

"I'm sorry, Sir, but it's all here, in black and white."

"In between the page 3 girls' tits and an in depth-analysis of Wayne Rooney's latest yellow card! D'you honestly believe a word you read in this rag? It'll all be chip papers or cheap bogroll by Monday!"

"So the Freak doesn't have an older brother who's cleverer than him?" Sally challenged. "He didn't burn down his garden shed four times before he left primary school? His parents didn't get divorced when he was eight and pack him off to live with his French granny for a year?"

"Anyone could've found that stuff out, Donovan, if they looked hard enough. D'you honestly think it's more believable that Sherlock Holmes had a childhood friend than that some tabloid hyena did her research?"

That one gave her pause, as Lestrade had known it would. "Maybe he wasn't as bad when he was a kid," she hazarded. "And there must be more than one John Watson in the world."

"Well, he's definitely not spilling Sherlock's life history over the front pages."

"Be a bit difficult at the moment, what with him being on the run for kidnapping, Sir."

"John is innocent, Donovan; they both are…" Lestrade insisted, just as Sally's mobile rang.

"Donovan," she answered impatiently. "What? We're already on a case, why are you calling me? Gregson's next on the rota…"

Lestrade, using the temporary interruption to actually read the newspaper, didn't look up until several seconds later, when he heard Sally inhale sharply. She was staring glassily at the wall, shock written all over her face.

"Is it definite?" She managed to ask, unsteadily. "Is it really…" Her eyes closed; she swallowed hard. "Oh, God… Yes, yes, I… I'll tell him."

She turned slowly to face her boss, chocolate eyes wider than Lestrade had ever seen.

"Donovan?" He asked cautiously. "What's happened?

"It's… this morning, about half an hour ago…" she stumbled. "It was definitely a… a suicide, there were witnesses…"

Lestrade could feel the dread rising from his gut as she struggled to get the words out. "A suicide? Whose?"

"I'm sorry, Greg," She said, genuinely. "Sherlock… he jumped, off the roof of St Bart's Hospital."

"_Sherlock?" _Lestrade exclaimed in shock. "No; they must be wrong. Sherlock wouldn't… He just _wouldn't_." Blindly, Lestrade grabbed for his coat. "I'm going down there; I need to question these so-called _witnesses_ for myself. They can't be right, it must just be a lookalike, or something…"

"It wasn't," Sally stated flatly.

"How would you know, from a thirty second phone call?" The DI demanded angrily. "You never saw him when he was high; if Sherlock was ever going to crack and top himself, he would've done it then."

"One of them was John Watson. He saw the whole thing from the street."

Lestrade stumbled, suddenly unsteady on his feet. "_Jesus Christ_," he whispered.

"D'you… still want to go down there?" She asked hesitantly, as if seeking an excuse. "You don't have to…"

Greg simply looked at her, shoulders slumped and eyes bleak. "Don't be stupid, Donovan. Of course I have to."

Lestrade stepped out of the car in something of a daze, barely noticing Sally at his elbow. The whole street had been closed off to keep the crowds away; a white crime scene tent had been erected to keep not only the rain off the evidence, but the gathering profusion of telescopic camera lenses too.

Inside the tent he found a cluster of police officers standing around a conspicuous rusty stain on the wet paving slabs. The diffusion of the blood into the surrounding rainwater created a morbidly beautiful pattern around its edges, like a hundred desperate fingers reaching out for help.

"Lestrade," greeted Ackenthwaite curtly. "Good, now you're here we can get an official ID on the body."

"Me? What about… I thought John was here?"

"He's in A&E, being treated for 'shock,' apparently," the Superintendent informed him sceptically.

"Well of course he's in shock; he just watched his best mate chuck himself off a roof!" Lestrade protested.

"Or, the jammy bastard's trying it on so he can make a run for it. I've got a couple of uniforms outside the door in case he tries to leg it again; they'll take Watson back to the Yard as soon as the quacks are finished with him. Doesn't hurt to take precautions. You got anything, Anderson?"

"Position of the blood stain, spatter and witness reports are all consistent with suicide, sir," the forensics officer answered grimly, as he knelt beside the carmine blemish still gradually expanding over the uneven paving. "I'm going up to the roof to look at Brook's body as soon as I'm finished here."

"Brook?" Queried Donovan. "He's dead too?"

"Bullet to the head on the rooftop," Ackenthwaite informed her. "Looks like a murder-suicide so far; maybe Holmes didn't like what he read in the papers."

"I always said…" She began, but Lestrade interrupted before she could get out her inevitable 'I told you so'.

"_Don't_, Donovan," he said harshly. "Not _here_."

In the ringing silence that followed, Anderson leant forward, a pair of steel tweezers in hand, to prod delicately at the centre of the pool. The instrument closed on something and he lifted it up to the light.

The assembled policemen could only stare at the single dark hair, perhaps four inches long, coated thickly with blood but still showing an unmistakable tendency to curl rebelliously.

"Oh, God," Lestrade breathed, his face ashen, a trembling hand rising to cover his mouth. "Sherlock, you selfish bastard… What've you done?"

SHSHSHSHSH

In the end, the Superintendent's precautions were unnecessary. John went quietly with the two burly PCs who escorted him back to New Scotland Yard; he spoke only to confirm his name and address to the custody sergeant. It was mid afternoon before he was sitting in a cramped industrial beige interview room, waiving his right to a lawyer.

Lestrade's hands hadn't stopped shaking yet; he'd been relegated to observing the interview via CCTV. Instead, it was Sally and Ackenthwaite who sat on the opposite side of the table to the man barely recognisable as Sherlock Holmes's best friend.

John Watson appeared to have aged ten years overnight. His face was grey, and every line etched around his glazed eyes seemed twice as deep as yesterday. His posture was worryingly perfect in the hard plastic chair, spine ramrod straight, military training far more evident than ever before.

"Are you sure you don't want to reconsider having legal representation?" Sally asked, one last time; John didn't even bother to glare at her.

"Right then," Ackenthwaite began. "We're not going to bother discussing the assault charge; all three of us were in the room when you nutted me and I swear to God I'll see you go down for that at least, whatever else you may be charged with. Where were you at approximately 3a.m. the day before yesterday?"

John said nothing; in fact, he didn't even seem to have heard the question. His eyes were fixed on the blank wall behind their heads as if it were a window on the universe.

"You think it's clever, giving us the silent treatment?" The Superintendent continued. "Forensics are going over your flat with a nit comb as we speak; if there's so much as a hint of evidence that you knew what Holmes was up to, regardless of if you were involved, you're going down as an accessory to kidnapping, and more than likely murder too."

The only reaction from their prisoner was a slow blink.

"Look, stop mucking about and be sensible, John, yeah?" Donovan tried. "We know _you're_ no criminal mastermind; make it easy on yourself and tell us what we need to know."

Ackenthwaite slammed his palm down angrily on the tabletop. John's empty blue-hazel eyes flickered automatically down to watch it without interest. "If you think for one second that you're helping yourself with this little display, Mr Watson, you have clearly never been locked in a room with an irate copper before. Where were you? Tell me! Now!"

"Doctor," John corrected, his voice weak and raspy.

"A doctor? At three in the morning?"

"I'm a doctor all the time. Doctor Watson, not Mister."

"All right, then, _Doctor_," he replied scathingly. "Answer the bloody question. Where were you at 3a.m. yesterday morning?"

"Two hundred and twenty one bee, Baker Street," was the simple answer.

"And what were you doing there?"

"I live there."

"Can anyone corroborate your whereabouts, John?" Sally tried.

The soldier's jaw visibly flexed as he swallowed hard. "Not any more," he whispered.

"How tall are you, Watson?" Ackenthwaite asked.

"Five seven."

"And your shoe size?"

"Nine."

"You have a problem with your leg, don't you? Old war wound?"

"Something like that."

"You remember those footprints we found at the school? The ones Holmes claimed he used to find those poor kids? The Forensics boys reckon they belong to a man between five foot six and five foot eight, size nine feet, and a slight limp. Now, that description doesn't fit him; but it's a pretty good one of you, isn't it?"

To Sally's astonishment, John let out a harsh bark of mirthless laughter.

"Oh, well done," he remarked caustically. "Anderson deserves a raise. He really fell for Jim's little plan hook, line and sinker, just like the rest of you. Wasn't enough to ruin one of us; no, he had to go for the double. Well, the hat trick by now, I s'pose."

"You're still claiming that Holmes was innocent?"

"Not claiming. Stating a fact."

"Do you have any kind of evidence to back that up?"

"I knew Sherlock Holmes. And I know the frailty of genius."

"The what?" Donovan asked.

"Genius needs an audience. I was his audience; and he never lost an opportunity to show off to me. I saw him make impossible leaps of logic, unbelievable deductions… and I know it was genuine because I also saw him get it wrong. Tell me, Sergeant Donovan; you knew him longer than I did, after all. Exactly how much did Sherlock like admitting to being wrong about anything?"

"He didn't. Ever, in my hearing."

"Exactly. Within two minutes of meeting me, Sherlock reeled off my university education, my military career, my family life, and the state of my finances from my tan lines and a glance at my phone. But he got one vital detail wrong, a detail he'd have found out in the first five minutes of even a basic background check."

"And what was that?"

"He said I had a worried, alcoholic brother I didn't like much who'd just walked out on his wife."

"So?"

"So, what I actually have is a worried, alcoholic lesbian sister I don't like much who'd just walked out on her civil partner. If he'd known everything there was to know about me before the first time we met, he would've known that Harry is short for Harriet. It was all real, every last deduction. I _know_ it; I knew _Sherlock_."

"Yeah? Then why did he chuck himself off a roof this morning?" Ackenthwaite asked bluntly, unimpressed by John's logic.

John physically flinched, the muscles in his face twitching uncontrollably as he fought to keep himself in check.

"We know that Sherlock phoned you just before he jumped, John," Sally said, as gently as she could manage. "We found his mobile on the roof. What did he have to say?"

"He… I… I don't know why he…" The soldier crumpled, blinking rapidly, before taking a deep breath and squaring his shoulders. "He said… he was sorry, and… he said goodbye." His throat worked furiously for a moment.

The Superintendent raised an eyebrow. "It took three and a half minutes to say two words?"

"There were some… personal things."

"What kind of 'personal things'?"

"He… he told me… things I won't repeat. Not ever."

"Ok, John," Donovan intervened, knowing exactly how stubborn the doctor could be. "Maybe there's something else you can help us with. Sherlock sent a text message, about ten minutes before he phoned you, to an encrypted number we can't trace or identify. It said…" She consulted her notebook for the exact wording. "_Actions speak louder than words. If you want to apologise, look after him better than you did me. SH._"

John buried his head in his hands. "Oh, God… Mycroft… He sent him a _text_…"

"Who's Mycroft?" Ackenthwaite asked.

"Mycroft Holmes, Sherlock's brother," John answered absently… and then raised his head, brows furrowed. "D'you mean to tell me that you haven't even talked to him yet?" He asked incredulously. "Jesus; you're so busy trying to prove Sherlock to be a monster, because you hated him, not because there's any evidence to back it up… and you can't even be bothered to inform his next of kin that he's…?" John's voice trembled and broke.

"Sherlock Holmes was a human being! He had _friends,_ and a _family,_ and he killed himself this morning and all you lot care about is blackening his name to make yourselves look better!" He turned accusing eyes on Donovan. "And _you_ called _him_ a Freak? Get out, the pair of you! I am not saying one more bloody word until you've done your duty; the one that should always have come first. Out!"

SHSHSHSHSH

Let me know what you thought.


	3. Part III: A Sky of Dust

A/N: Once again, thank you to everyone who took the time to review.

Big gold star goes to toeki, for encyclopaedic knowledge of old Linkin Park songs. Yes, you're right, the title and chapter names all come from track 6 on one of my all time favourite albums Hybrid Theory, entitled "Run Away." I was listening to it when I thought up the idea for this story. It does kinda fit.

SHSHSHSHSH

Guilty By Association: Part III – A Sky of Dust

Sally Donovan had had an excruciatingly long and stressful day.

Lestrade, who was so far in shock one could be forgiven for thinking he'd been stunned with a large halibut, had been more or less useless from the moment he'd ID'd Sherlock's body. He'd barely managed to scrape himself together enough to face finishing Ackenthwaite's case report. She couldn't exactly blame him for that; the DI had not only known the Freak a lot longer than Sally, but at times, actually seemed to like him. To go from co-operating with Sherlock, to arresting him, to investigating his suicide in less than forty-eight hours had been a shock even for Anderson, and their mutual loathing was legendary.

Unfortunately, police bureaucracy being what it was, Sally had had to take up the slack and do Lestrade's work as well as her own. It was almost enough to make her think twice about taking a promotion to DI, if she were ever offered one; and her already healthy respect for her boss definitely went up a notch or two.

As far as her personal feelings went, she wasn't entirely sure she had any yet. Donovan had never pretended to like Sherlock, and she firmly believed him to be guilty of more crimes than the Met would ever be able to prove. Still, she hadn't ever wished him actually _dead_. And she'd certainly never wanted to see the look in John Watson's eyes when the tough, stoical former soldier came perilously close to bursting into tears during his interview.

In her profession, Sally had met a lot of grieving relatives. It was an unspoken but nonetheless deep-seated assumption that female officers were better at dealing with tears and hysterics than male ones, so she'd often been designated with interviewing weeping siblings, spouses and parents. The suicides tended to be the worst; a toxic combination of guilt and grief and anger and shame all rolled up together as the family tried desperately to make sense of their loss.

John Watson was no exception. It made her wonder just what kind of hold Sherlock had over him, to break a strong man so thoroughly just by stepping off that ledge.

If anyone in the world would genuinely grieve for Sherlock Holmes, regardless of his deceptions, it would be John. Him, at least, Sally could wholeheartedly say she felt sorry for. The doctor had been relatively normal before he got sucked into the vortex of insanity that surrounded his eccentric flatmate; a decorated returning veteran who should have found a cushy GP job and settled down with a nice woman to have a couple of kids. Instead he'd chosen to move in with Sherlock Holmes and spend the better part of eighteen months being his PA, bodyguard, occasional guinea pig, biographer, personal physician, public relations manager, therapist, dogsbody and babysitter all rolled into one. The poor sod was clearly a bit mental; if he had committed any crimes (and she hoped to God he hadn't), she had no doubt they were entirely Sherlock's fault.

Two hours after she should technically have gone home, Sally looked up from her desk to see a tall, dark-haired stranger heading confidently for her bosses' office, umbrella swinging from his fingertips like an old-fashioned gentleman's cane.

"Excuse me, Sir," she called. "Can I help you?"

"I rather doubt it," he replied, pausing to address her in a posh tenor. "Sergeant Donovan, I believe? Detective Inspector Lestrade is expecting me."

Sally tried desperately to keep her hackles from rising at his condescending tone; it wasn't easy, after the day she'd had. "I'm afraid the DI is in a meeting with the Superintendent at the moment, sir," she answered, as professionally as she could manage. "Would you like to wait? I can let him know you're here when he gets back…"

"As a matter of fact, the subject of our meeting also concerns Chief Superintendent Ackenthwaite." He flashed an ID at her that made her eyes widen, and continued, "My name is Mycroft Holmes."

Donovan looked up into the dry, un-bloodshot, perfectly indifferent blue eyes of Holmes the elder and felt an icy prickle ghost down her spine. Comparing that haughty gaze with John's barely restrained misery was like comparing… well, Sherlock with a normal person.

For the first time ever, she found herself feeling something akin to pity for Sherlock Holmes. If this calm, impeccably turned out individual was his closest living relative, mere hours after his suicide, was it really any wonder he turned out to be a psychopath?

Three minutes later, Sally rapped on Ackenthwaite's office door and waited for the muffled shouting from inside to die down before she pushed it open. "Sorry, sir," she said, with a glance from the puce-cheeked Superintendent to a decidedly grey Lestrade. "Mr Holmes is here to see you?" The DI visibly flinched at the name. He scrambled to his feet and went immediately to shake Sherlock's brother by the hand.

"Oh, God… Mycroft… I am so sorry," he said earnestly. "You didn't need to come all the way down here; I've been trying your mobile, but it went straight to voicemail…"

"It's quite all right, Detective Inspector," Mycroft replied, with a small smile made unconvincing only by the tightness of the skin around his eyes and his white-knuckled grip on his umbrella. "I was informed of… events… through my own channels before you were. No need to break the news."

"You're a difficult man to contact, Mr Holmes," Said Ackenthwaite, automatically rising in the presence of such obvious authority.

"My apologies, Chief Superintendent Ackenthwaite," Mycroft replied smoothly, taking the seat Lestrade offered gracefully. "I occasionally employed my brother, and unfortunately, I have had to spend a great deal of time and effort justifying that decision to my own superiors today. It necessitated turning off my phone for the first time since… 2005, I believe."

"Our condolences for your loss, Sir," the Super said perfunctorily. "We'll need to ask you a few questions…"

"Of course; although you should be aware that under the terms of the Official Secrets Act, I am not permitted to divulge any relevant information about any investigations Sherlock undertook for me, involving James Moriarty and his vast and lucrative criminal empire or otherwise. Fortunately, my brother did not count as an official secret except when I was employing him, so I may be candid with you about everything but his work."

Ackenthwaite's brows shot up, as did the level of obsequiousness in his voice when he asked his next question. "What, exactly, do you do, Mr Holmes?"

"I occupy a minor position in the British Government. I am not permitted to be more specific on official records, I'm afraid." Sally fought the urge to bury her face in her hands. The prospect of a Holmes in government was a terrifying one; all the more so because at some unimaginably high level, it probably made him her boss.

"I thought there were rules these days, about politicians employing their relatives," the Superintendent tried cautiously.

"There are. Fortunately, they only apply to MPs, not the civil service. From time to time, I consulted Sherlock on a freelance basis when a problem cropped up that I was too busy, or had no one available, to deal with, much in the same way DI Lestrade here did."

"And the nature of that work? In the vaguest possible terms, of course," Ackenthwaite hastened to add.

"Widely varied, but principally investigative. And all quite above board."

"Of course, sir. You were close to your brother, then, I take it?"

"Not particularly; ours couldn't be described as an especially tight knit family. I was… very invested in his wellbeing, but the sentiment has not been entirely mutual for many years. He tended to find me… a tad overbearing."

"Reckon that might have had something to do with all those impromptu trips to rehab, Mycroft," Lestrade remarked, remembering with a wince.

An odd twist distorted the frighteningly tranquil features for a moment. "Yes; in Sherlock's eyes, my not wanting to watch him poison himself to death was a capital offence," he replied dryly. "But he always was convinced that he knew best."

"You're quite a bit older than Sherlock, is that correct?" The Super asked.

"Seven years, yes."

"So you would have been in a good position to notice any conspicuous intelligence on his part?"

Mycroft arched an eyebrow elegantly. "You mean like the fact that Sherlock had mastered five languages and seven musical instruments by the age of thirteen, and once managed to blow up next door's gazebo using only a ball of string, six ounces of icing sugar and a plastic armadillo?"

Even Lestrade blinked at that one, not having been privy to that particular Sherlockian escapade.

"My brother is… was… a genius." Mycroft intoned, his voice growing distant for a moment. "If you believe nothing else, believe that."

"So the stories in the papers…" The DI began hesitantly. "All the childhood details…" Mycroft's face did the twisting thing again. Embarrassment, possibly, Sally wondered? Or could it be his poor impersonation of a man attempting to repress emotion?

"The anecdotes are, unfortunately, mostly true."

Donovan ventured to chip in, unable to resist. "Even the one about how he got kicked out of university?"

"Yes, Sergeant, even that one, although that was not entirely his fault. Sherlock had been devouring forensics textbooks and journals for years by that point, and even I could see that the forensics lecturer was an idiot to think he could use stratigraphic chromatography to detect bloodstains months after the crime. Sherlock was simply… lacking in subtlety, when he proved it."

"When was the last time you spoke with your brother, Mr Holmes?" The Superintendent enquired.

"On the phone? About… oh, five months ago. In person, it must be more like six or seven. I'd have to check with my assistant to be more specific."

"Seems a long time," Sally observed. "Was that unusual?"

"Not since Doctor Watson arrived on the scene. He did a far better job of looking after Sherlock than I, simply because my brother actually listened to him on occasion; which is more than I can boast. I'm certain you understand, Superintendent, with three… no, four… brothers of your own."

Ackenthwaite shifted uncomfortably in his seat. "How did you know… Oh, of course; a man in your position could get my personnel file."

"True, but quite unnecessary, when presented with the physical data…" He pulled a quick, fake smirk. "But I won't bore you with the details." Sally's eyebrows jumped towards her hairline. If she wasn't very much mistaken, that was the start of one of Sherlock's impossible deductions. Which meant either that the brothers Holmes shared the same freakish talent, or Mycroft really had read that file and was trying to make out he'd deduced it in order to help prove his brother's innocence. At the moment, she couldn't decide which was more likely.

"I did, however, take a few minutes to examine the photographs of the footprints from the school kidnapping," Mycroft continued. "I do not pretend to have spent anywhere near as much time at crime scenes as my late brother; but I must confess to being slightly puzzled as to your reasons for suspecting Doctor Watson's involvement, based on that evidence."

"If you read the forensics report, Mr Holmes, then you know exactly why we are considering Doctor Watson as a suspect," Ackenthwaite said firmly. "And with all due respect, whatever your position, it doesn't give you authority to dictate the course of an active police investigation."

"I would never presume to do such a thing, Superintendent; I'm not my brother," Mycroft assured him smoothly. "I merely observed a few details that were missed by your team; it is my duty as a concerned citizen to point them out to you, is it not? Besides, there was no need to read the report; the photographs were quite sufficient to deduce the height, weight, build and mild infirmity of your kidnapper. The length of stride, smudging of the prints, shoe size, and the fact that he was putting most of his weight onto the heel of the right foot all speak volumes."

Lestrade looked grateful; Sally and Ackenthwaite merely stared open mouthed. _How did I never know that there were _two_ of them?_ Sally wondered.

Mycroft smirked; far more politely than his brother, it had to be said. "Come now; don't tell me it never occurred to you to wonder whom it was that taught Sherlock to observe; it was a game we played as boys. Sherlock simply became rather big headed about it."

"You can say that again," Lestrade remarked wryly. "What was it about the footprints that told you they weren't John's, Mycroft?"

"As I am certain both you and Sergeant Donovan have observed, the good doctor, like approximately eleven percent of the population, is left-handed."

Ackenthwaite rubbed his increasingly colourful nose gingerly, wincing. "So?"

"So, as talented with a handgun as he undoubtedly is after his time in the military, John shoots primarily with his left hand. The kidnapper, however, kept his left arm wrapped around the throat of one of the children while he pointed the gun at her brother with his right. He, therefore, is most likely right handed."

"That doesn't prove anything," Sally snorted. "The Freak was smart enough to tell him to hold it in the wrong hand…"

"_Donovan!_" Lestrade shouted, appalled.

Mycroft's eyes closed briefly. "Sherlock and I may not have been particularly close, Sergeant," he began, every syllable clipped to razor sharpness. "But I am not prepared to continue assisting the police with your enquiries into his suicide which happened _this morning_ unless you are prepared to speak of my little brother with at least professionalism, since clearly respect is too much to ask."

Sally was mortified. Corrected for insensitivity by a _Holmes,_ of all people. "I… I'm sorry. I didn't mean… I didn't think…"

"Evidently," he cut her off, before turning abruptly to the DI. "How much do you know about Captain Watson of the Fifth Northumberland Fusiliers, Inspector?"

"Um, not a lot," Lestrade replied, slightly startled by the rapid change of subject. "John, uh, doesn't talk much about himself."

"But you are aware that his discharge from Her Majesty's armed forces was on a medical basis, correct?"

"Yeah, he got wounded in Afghanistan, somehow, didn't he?"

"To be more precise, Doctor Watson suffered a gunshot wound that to this day, severely limits the dexterity, muscular strength, and range of motion of his left shoulder; and therefore, his dominant arm. He can't even fully extend it above his head. You may well need to consult a specialist in such injuries, but I personally find it doubtful that he could have marched along a struggling child held around the throat with his damaged left arm without significant pain, if at all. If John were to attempt to do such a thing, it would make far more sense for him to hold the girl with his much stronger right arm, and point the gun at her brother with the left. But as you pointed out, Superintendent, it is not my job to tell you how to investigate; a truth Sherlock never quite managed to grasp."

"And didn't we just know it," Lestrade said, almost wistfully. "Half the time, we all wanted to strangle him; until he came up with something completely brilliant and solved the case in a tenth of the time it would've taken us."

"Sherlock, like the vast majority of highly intelligent people, was a difficult man," Mycroft replied. "His great obsession was his work, to the exclusion of all else; he rarely engaged in any social activity. John had to bully him into eating and sleeping, let alone spending unproductive time with other people. Our… fraternal relationship… was sufficiently strained that he only contacted me when he wanted something, and only then as a last resort. I did my best to assist him, when his requests were not entirely unreasonable. I did promise Mummy, after all."

Very carefully, the three police officers did not react to hearing a man in his forties refer to his maternal parent as 'Mummy'.

Ackenthwaite cleared his throat and redirected the questioning. "What did you speak about when he rang you, Mr Holmes?"

"We exchanged a few phone calls when a private case of his strayed into my remit. I am afraid that the content of those calls, and the case they related to, fall firmly under the 'secret' heading and are therefore out of bounds. There have been a few text messages since, but nothing of any great importance; at least until this morning."

"Yes, that text he set you, something about an apology? What did that refer to?"

Mycroft shifted uncomfortably in his chair. "I made a… misjudgement… recently, which impacted upon my brother and Doctor Watson."

"Please tell me you didn't offer John money again, Mycroft," said Lestrade, rubbing a hand wearily over his face.

"Oh, no; once was quite enough to cement his resistance to the idea, I assure you. No, it was a… professional matter, which I cannot speak more of, I'm afraid."

Sally opened her mouth to ask, but Ackenthwaite beat her to it. "Money? What money?"

"You must understand, Superintendent, that my brother's immediate and obvious attachment to John Watson was quite unprecedented. I was very concerned about the kind of man he was getting involved with, so I tested John's character by offering a financial incentive for information on Sherlock's life; without disclosing our blood relationship, of course. John refused categorically, proving himself to be that rarest of creatures, almost never encountered in my line of work. An honourable man."

"Doctor Watson's a friend of yours, then, is he?"

"More of an acquaintance. I'm afraid I simply fall into the large category of people who found John considerably easier to communicate with than Sherlock. Inevitably, spending time with my brother mostly involved him finding ever more creative ways to irritate me, as is the way of younger siblings."

"So, did you get aquainted with many of your brother's friends? Rich Brook, for example?"

"I know everyone Sherlock could even approach describing as a friend both personally and professionally, Superintendent. And I can categorically confirm that none of them are named Richard Brook. Indeed, I am astonished that none of you have noticed the significance of the name."

"Significance?" Lestrade asked, in confusion. "What significance?"

"Rich Brook is simply an anglofication of Reichenbach, Sherlock's most famous case. Since the individual claiming to be Brook is now deceased, I would suggest you consult the journalist, a Ms Riley, about how he professed to know my brother."

"Please don't take this the wrong way, Sir," Ackenthwaite began, as respectfully as he could manage, "But if those stories in the paper are true, then surely Brook must have known Sherlock in some way; they're not exactly matters of public record."

For the first time, Mycroft looked genuinely sorrowful. "I am not omnipotent, Superintendent," he said quietly. "But I knew my brother better than anyone. And I _know_ that he did not hire an out of work actor to strap a bomb to the best thing that ever happened to him."

"Hear, hear," Lestrade seconded wholeheartedly. Sally tried not to look too obviously sceptical.

"So, you don't believe that Sherlock and John were engaged in any criminal activity, Mr Holmes?" Ackenthwaite asked.

"I believe my brother was, at heart, a good man; and I know for a fact that John is. I thought that eventually, with the Doctor's encouragement, Sherlock would be able to prove his true nature. He has always been… troubled. Volatile, at times. But no matter how much he resented me, I always remained… irrationally fond of him."

The Superintendent leaned forward. "How irrationally?"

"Not enough to blind me to his many faults. But he was doing so well; John was such a positive influence. I hadn't seen him so close to genuinely happy since we were boys."

"Then if he was innocent, why did he jump?" Asked Sally, keeping her tone carefully neutral.

"I was his older brother, not his psychic twin, Sergeant. But, if I had to hazard a guess… You are aware of Sherlock's history with illegal substances. He only managed to give them up, after almost ten years of addiction, for the sake of the work Detective Inspector Lestrade was able to offer him. Following this debacle, even if proved innocent, he knew that he would never be allowed onto another murder scene; reduced to the pursuit of missing cats and unfaithful husbands that provided no stimulation to his considerable intellect."

"Sherlock was self-aware enough to know what would happen next. Without the work, he would have spiralled again, gone back to the drugs. Doing so would have driven John away; he has far too intimate a knowledge of substance abuse to tolerate a resurgence of Sherlock's old habits. My brother's finances would also have suffered enough that he would not be able to afford the rent at Baker Street on his own, so he would lose Mrs Hudson alongside the Doctor. And so Sherlock would have been left alone again, without work, without stimulation, and without the only three people in the world he has ever genuinely liked. It seems that he chose to end his life rather than lose everything he loved."

The silence rang for several seconds. Sally, for one, was in shock at hearing the word 'love' associated with the word 'Sherlock'.

"Now, if there is nothing further?" Mycroft stated briskly, rising from his chair. "I should be getting on; arrangements to make, and so on, you understand."

SHSHSHSHSH

I said this was going to be a three-parter; apparently I lied. I'm thinking one more chapter? Possibly with an epilogue to follow it, haven't decided yet.

P.S If anyone's wondering about the halibut in the first paragraph, it's because I've been watching excessive Monty Python again.


End file.
